Aftermath of Hurricane Irene-Our Boat Lost and Finally Found

I woke up yesterday, happy to see that the heavy rain and winds had finally subsided. We still had power, our basement was dry, and none of the branches from our trees had been broken. I looked out to see the sky once again a beautiful blue color, gratefuly assured that we had pretty much escaped the brunt of the storm.

I was wrong.

Our little Bayliner, 17 feet long and topped with a blue cover, had been securely fastened along with five other boats to a dock on the Hudson River across from the former Troy City Hall.

During the storm, the dock broke free, swung around but held tight until about 11:00 am yesterday. The waters were too dangerous to retrieve it, and any access by land was blocked off by debris. Then the dock broke loose, casting all of the boats, including ours, farther down south. All that could be done was to hope that the boats would stay close by.

This didn’t happen and the power of the river sent the boats floating farther down south. We were worried that it was on its way to New York City. We even found the above picture of it on the internet floating down river!

Luckily, the Coast Guard called in the late evening to tell us that our scrappy little boat had traveled under five bridges down the Hudson to finally wedge itself into the Getty Station just south of Rensselaer. And they said it looks okay!

2 Responses

Well at least it was tied securely to the dock! Just kidding, that is a stressful thing to have happen! Usually people don’t take the precuations or don’t know how to tie up the boat for this kind of weather; I wouldn’t have even thought of the dock itself floating away!